Monday, August 22, 2011

I get asked a lot of questions about routines, what products to use, transitioning help and the list goes on. If you have any questions, I have a section that is devoted for them called "Got Questions" right above in the purple tabs menu.

What I think I am going to do from here on out is to answer some questions as blog posts and to answer some as a youtube video instead of answering each one individually. The reason why is so that everyone can benefit as a whole. It also will help to cut down on some of the same questions being asked again and again and having to re-answer them again and again.

Okay I know that is a lie. Some people will see a big ole "Routine" section on the blog and still ask me what my routine is. I'm like negro didn't you just see the....

But yeah, that is the plan going forward. If you have questions about your hair, just ask them up above and I'll try to get back to ya soon!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

I wore the swirled flat twists and mini twists for about 11 days and then I had enough. Nothing was really wrong with the style, it was still rockable, but I was just tired of the look.

Honestly, I am kind of torn between the "out" style. I like the definition, but I hate the "light bulbish" shape. I went from looking like Yoshi to Toad:

my light bulb fro is shining bright!

Right now I have been looking like Toad for almost a week and I plan to retire this style tonight. To maintain it every night I just braid it up and put my cotton elastic scrunchies around the ends and unleash it in the morning. I made a short silly video showing the look if you are interested.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

So the results are in. This poll of course is not scientific so you have to keep that in mind with the results. According to the 55 respondents who participated, 45 percent said that they would leave a man who did not like their natural hair. Another 18 percent said that they would not leave a man who did not like their natural hair while 30 percent said that it depends. Only about 5 percent said that they did not know.

Surprisingly, a vast majority of you all said that you would leave a man if he did not like your natural hair. I am interested in hearing a response from you or from anyone else who would like to share why they chose the answer that they did. So the question remains for me: would I leave a man who didn't like my natural hair? Personally, I would not leave a man "right away" because he doesn't like my hair in its natural state. I believe that women should give their men time to adjust to their new natural look.

As soon as you cut out that last piece of relaxer, don't be surprised if you are not greeted with immediate tears of joy from your other half. Human beings are creatures of habit, and as much as we sometimes hate to admit it, we have a hard time adjusting to change of any form. Going from straight relaxed hair to kinky natural hair can be shocking not only to yourself, but to your mate as well, especially if you all have been together for a long period of time.

We as black people have been conditioned to believe that nappy hair is at the bottom of the totem pole and straight and curly hair are the cream of the crop of the hair textures lottery. So no, he may not like your natural hair the first few months immediately following the big chop. It will more than likely take some time for his mind to be reprogrammed to see the beauty in your natural hair texture.

You also have to remember that with men, it is not necessarily the texture that they do not like, but it is the length that is the problem. He may not like the short and the nappy hair, but he doesn't know this. All he knows is that you cut all your long beautiful hair off and you are left with short and nappy hair and something isn't right. That is why I believe that it is crucial to let a few months pass and see if his opinion changes as your hair begins to grow out.

As time progresses, he probably will begin to like your hair as he sees just how versatile your hair is, and how he can actually run his fingers through your hair (imagine that?). Of course there are those of us who choose to wear our natural hair short on purpose. Once again, the man may need some time to adjust to your new look. Give the man some time, okay?

Now here is the flip side: if it is a 18 months after your big chop and he is still requesting that you "do something to your hair", then maybe you all need to sit down and have a chit chat about what is truly going on. This man obviously has a problem with the texture of your natural hair. If this man has natural hair himself, or afro-textured hair, then I would be worried as to why he has a problem with something that is growing from his own scalp.

At this point I would wonder if he has some self hate issues that he not only is passing on to you, but that he may pass on to his children if he has any or if you all plan to have any. I'm not going to pretend as if nappy hair hate is not a deep rooted problem within our community because it is. It affects women as well as men and these same thoughts and beliefs are continuing to be passed on from generation to generation in our community. The cycle has to stop somewhere. And honestly, if he is still hung up on your hair texture after a year of you being natural, then he may not ever like it.

Of course he may need some more time to adjust or he may even need to work out some inner demons to fully appreciate the beauty of black hair, but you have to decide if your relationship is worth the fight. If this is a man that you started a family with and you all have been together for years, then it may be worth the fight.

But if this is a brother who is fresh off the block and you all have only been together for a few months, then you may want to cut it off before you become too attached. We as women have a bad habit of wanting to play mother and psychologist to grown men when it is not our job. The only person that we can control and change is ourselves.

That is why I never mentioned one time that you can change his mind by doing ABC or D because you can't. If he has a deep seated issue with natural hair, then more than likely there is nothing that you can personally do to change this. And you have to be able to accept this.

Can you say that my answer is contradictory? Absolutely. On one hand, I would leave a man who didn't like my natural hair and we didn't have that much history together if I could tell right away that it is an issue. Why fight over hair when there are plenty of men who like women who wear their hair natural? But at the same time, if we have been together for years, then I wouldn't just kick the man out because he didn't like my hair as soon as I did the big chop.

In the end, I would just suggest that if your hair is an issue in your relationship, that you all sit down and have a discussion and find out where the problem is coming from. Communication is key in any relationship and you all should feel free to discuss your feelings about any and everything in a respectful manner. It is the only way a relationship will survive.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

I wore the flat twist and twists for a total of 15 days before I took the twists out. Yeah, I could have rocked it for a little while longer (especially since I don't feel like doing anything else with my hair) but I really need to wash my hair like yesterday. Scalp is on serious itch mode right now that only some good ole fashion shampoo and the pads of my fingers could solve.

Anyway, I made a video showing the take down process and the finished look, but of course here are the pics for those who don't want to watch the video:

Monday, August 1, 2011

I'm going to create a tutorial soon for these. Yesterday I just got the urge to do them, and so I did. I use to do nails aaaaall the time in high school and just kind of stopped doing them. Anyway, I will do a picture tutorial and a video tutorial for this design and probably more in the future. I have so many designs that I want to do in the future.

But I will tell you this now. If you have a dollar tree in your area, then you need to run over there and pick these up:

The L.A Colors Nails Art Deco. Dope right for only a dollar a piece? You know what, I'm one of those people who fall for the "collect them all" marketing strategy. If I like something in one color, guess what, I'm going back to get the rest, and so here I am with about $11 dollars worth of nail polish.

Anyways, here is why I like these:

That thin brush is on point (no pun intended)! I use to use acrylic paint on my nails way back in the day (and still have about 30 colors now) and I use to use a toothpick to paint the design or I would use a thick art brush and just angle it. That crap got old because I would mess up all the time and is probably the main reason why I stopped doing nails.

Another reason why I am feeling these is because they use actual nail paint. Some of them are a little thin, but the majority of them are thick and good quality (the reason why I have the whole collect all 11 colors collection now). So if they ever come out with more colors, you already know I'm going to be coping them too.

The ugly:

You see that right? They came out the pack like that. I think that whoever designed them did a poor job of fitting the cap on the bottle. But the polish hasn't dried up or anything so I just roll with it.

So yeah, I would suggest that you all run over to your local dollar tree and check these out. I didn't buy all the colors, so there are a few more that I didn't show, so maybe there is something in there that you will like if you didn't like the colors I have.